“It already has.” Pack took a deep breath. “And into some others as well. Pierce Bolan was no outlaw.”
“I’m not sure I knew the man. I recognize the name …”
“Place on Beaver Creek.”
“Yes. Well there are dozens of outlaw cabins in that district, aren’t there.”
“Now, Pierce Bolan was a hard-working man. I don’t believe he ever stole.”
“Arthur—why talk this way to me?”
“Because there are people here, people not without distinction and importance, who believe you’re the leader of the Stranglers.”
This time both eyebrows went up. The Marquis said, “Indeed. Can you picture me riding my horse all over the Bad Lands by day and by night, hanging outlaws from trees, and still having time to be here at my very busy duties every single day, and to entertain our visitors each evening as well?”
“No one’s said you ride with them. You’ve been identified as the force behind them.”
“Identified. By whom?”
“By men who can’t be ignored.”
“Their names?”
Pack had gone too far too stop. “Names? What are the names of the Stranglers?”
“I’ve no idea, Arthur.”
Pack hesitated. He believed the Marquis, as he always had; but he understood that good men could have evil impulses. He said, “Now, you do know what the vigilantes are doing.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” The Marquis was nearly purring. A little smile hovered beneath his mustaches.
Pack said, “The outlaws need to be cleaned out—I’ve always agreed with you about that. You’ve created wealth here, and that always attracts the low element—they’ve descended on the Bad Lands like moths to a flame. I’ve got no sympathy for criminals. And I’ve got no patience with so-called law officers like Harmon who leave us no choice but to find our own way to defend ourselves. My newspaper supports that position without reservation.”
“Then we are in agreement. Why are you here?”
“Because Pierce Bolan has been lynched, and Dutch Reuter was nearly hanged, and some of our best citizens have come to believe things have gone too far.”
“I don’t know anything about Mr. Bolan. As for Reuter, you know my feelings about that man, but if someone tried to lynch him, I still don’t understand why you’ve come to me. If it’s because of the ridiculous rumors that Mr. Paddock rides with the Regulators, I can assure you there’s no truth in them. Mr. Paddock has no more time for such activities than I do.”
“I believe that. Now, I’ve come because I’m obliged to tell you that if I don’t publish the suspicions of these citizens, I’m sure they’ll turn up in the newspapers in Dickinson and Mandan and Bismarck. It would be better all around if you could head it off now.”
“And how may I do that? What do you want to do, Arthur—print a story that says, ‘Marquis denies lynching Pierce Bolan’? Do you believe that would dissolve the suspicions of my enemies?”
“If I could simply print your side of the story—”
The Marquis looked out the window and looked back at Pack, and said, “I shall be happy to tell you my ‘side,’ as you put it—I shall candidly take you into my confidence—but you may not print a word of it. Is that agreed?”
“I don’t—”
“When I’ve explained, you’ll understand why. I must have your word.”
“Now, in conscience I don’t believe I can—”
“Then we shall compromise. I always believe in the opportunities of compromise, as you know. Let’s say I shall leave it to your conscience, but you’ll at least agree to keep an open mind until I’ve finished. Agreed?”
“That’s certainly fair enough.”
“Sit down, Arthur.”
Pack chose the corner chair, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the Marquis in silhouette against the window.
The Marquis paced. “You’ve stumbled onto part of the truth. When you understand the whole of it, you’ll comprehend the vital need to keep it secret. It’s true my friend Granville Stuart began the movement, but each posse operates independently, and knows nothing of the membership of the others. I myself know none of the names of the Regulators in the Bad Lands posse, even though in a sense you are correct in believing I am its leader. My leadership is indirect, and mainly takes a financial form—I pay the wages and expenses of the possemen. Their actual leader is a man named W.H. Springfield. Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of him?”
“No.”
“Good.” The Marquis lifted his weighted bamboo stick from the desktop and began thrusting it out to arm’s length and holding it there for prolonged intervals. “In some ways I would prefer not to know him myself. He has an evil temper. He’s an agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. I assume you have heard of them?”
“‘We Never Sleep,’” said Pack, quoting the detective agency’s famous slogan. A picture leaped immediately into his mind of the advertisements with their enormous single wide-open eye.
“Precisely. In Chicago I consulted with Mr. Allan Pinkerton personally. He assigned Mr. Springfield as the best man for this task.”
Pack felt a rising prickle of excitement. He leaned forward.
The Marquis shifted the stick to his left hand and resumed exercising. “Mr. Pinkerton gave me fair warning that I should not find Springfield personally to my liking, and he was more than correct in that anticipation. But Springfield is doing the job to which he was assigned. His mission was to move through the Territory in the guise of a tough—to establish himself as a thief in order to infiltrate the rustler crowd to find out who they all were.”
The Marquis held the stick out again, then lowered it for a moment’s rest. “I know it sounds like a pot of penny-dreadful drivel, Arthur. I can’t help that. I promised you the full truth.”
“Go on.”
The Marquis extended the stick again. “When first I met Mr. Springfield he was sewing his papers into the lining of his coat, in case he should be arrested. He needs to be able to identify himself to officers of the law—he has what I suppose is a natural fear that by mistake one day he may be thrown into a cell in company with deadly villains whose arrest he may have caused. His fears may be well grounded, for according to Mr. Pinkerton he’s had an astounding record of successes.”
“Then I’m surprised I’ve never heard of him.”
“It’s a good thing for him you haven’t. Of course Springfield is his real name, and as you may imagine, he does not go by that name when he’s working undercover, as he is now. I don’t even know what name he’s using here in the Bad Lands.”
The Marquis grasped the stick in both hands now, and held it straight out in front of him, then slowly lifted it directly overhead and lowered it forward again.
“He’s a strikingly ugly man, our Mr. Springfield. The sort I should imagine I would feel a kinship to if I were a horse-thief. In the past few weeks he’s played poker and pool with toughs in every town and outlaw camp within a hundred miles’ radius of us. I’m happy to tell you he’s gained the confidence of the thieves, at least to the extent that he was able to identify and arrest a cattle-thief named Lepage.”
“I’ve heard that name. But I didn’t know he was hanged.”
“He wasn’t. Lepage is in Canada, so far as I know. Springfield offered him one hundred dollars and the promise of freedom in Canada, in return for the names of all the thieves in the Bad Lands. Lepage was agreeable to that arrangement. He gave Springfield a list of names. Springfield has given me that list, and I can tell you as a result that things are even worse than we had believed. The rustling ring is full of thieves and murderers—scores of them, including several whose names would surprise you mightily, even as they surprised me. Pierce Bolan’s was one of them, and in fact Springfield tells me he found the hides of several stolen cattle buried in Bolan’s compost heap. These little—what do they call them?—shoestring ranchers—have a way when they are hungry of assuming the right to slaughter their neighbor’s cattle in lieu of their own, so as to save their own for more profitable use in the marketplace. In any event we have the information now. I authorized agent Springfield to organize a posse and round up all the rustlers whose names are on the Lepage list. They are to be driven out of the Territory, and if they offer resistance, they are to be hanged, as an example to the others.”